Education

As introduced: LB 507 adopts the Step Up to Quality Act, putting in place a quality rating and improvement system (QRIS) with a scale of steps from one to five. The system is available to all child care and early childhood education programs voluntarily, but participation is required for programs…...

Voices for Children in Nebraska is working with senators on an interim study looking into the school breakfast program in Nebraska. Before we can encourage senators to increase participation of this program, it is important to know how many schools and districts offer a school breakfast program currently. As of…...

Access to quality child care is of paramount importance to the 56% of Nebraska families where all adults in the household are in the labor force (American Community Survey, 2011). LB 507 has taken steps toward ensuring the quality of child care and increasing affordability for the Nebraska families with low…...

In 2011, about 2,000 kids dropped out of Nebraska high schools. Also in 2011, a staggering 64% of Nebraska third graders weren’t reading at grade level. What do these two things have to do with each other? More and more research has found that the line that kids cross —…...

Affordable child care is essential to keeping kids safe so parents can work. Without access to safe affordable child care, parents may be unable to work or children may be left in unsafe situations. Nebraska took a step backwards in helping parents afford child care when eligibility for child care…...

At Voices for Children, our work focuses on bigger picture policy change for kids, but we know there are people on the ground doing amazing things for kids in our communities every day. Their stories are the pieces that make up the whole story of children and youth. The “Shout…...

This is the third post in the federal sequester’s impact on Nebraska’s kids. See the first two post here: Sequester Overview and Head Start. Today we will delve into the anticipated impacts of the sequester on teachers, schools, and education for children with disabilities....

The first post in this series examined what exactly the sequester is, and a brief introduction to the anticipated impacts on Nebraska’s kids. The second part of this multi-part series will focus on Head Start and Early Head Start. Head Start is a federal program that promotes the school readiness…...

Last year, we at Voices for Children watched with disapointment as Governor Heineman vetoed a bill to provide grants to help with the start-up costs of new school-based health centers. The bill failed to garner enough votes to have the veto overidden. Today, LB 275 will receive a hearing before the Education…...